Durban - John Plumtree has the rare pleasure of being able to select an unchanged line-up for his team’s Super Rugby clash with the Kings at Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium on Saturday.

Kick-off is at 19:10 SA time.

According to Sharks website editor Michael Marnewick, for the third week in a row, the match 22 has remained the same and given their record of consecutive wins in their opening two games, the Sharks will be riding a wave of continuity that bodes well for the early stages of the competition.

While there might be a temptation to rotate given the length of the competition, the Sharks coach admits that right now there are no plans to rotate.

“We’re only at Round 4, there are two more games after the Kings before we have a bye and we’ll then have an opportunity to freshen everyone up which will be good.”

The Sharks match against the Stormers was one of those physical battles fans have come to enjoy when two tough South Africans are engaged in a local derby. This was trench warfare and when it didn’t result in any tries, certainly it was intense and exciting. However, Plumtree does admit that they would like to see more of their own style this weekend which is about running rugby.

Given the early stage of the competition, the mental space the Stormers were in and their defensively sound style, and the heat, humidity and slippery ball, that game was never going to herald loads of tries.

“Hopefully we’ll get better, players will make good decisions and we’ll maintain ball for long periods of time. That will give guys like JP Pietersen, Lwazi Mvovo and the rest of our backs more ball, more fast ball. That’s certainly what Pat Lambie wants because it’s obviously not ideal for him to get slow ball, it makes it pretty hard to run off, we just have to make sure we will get better.”

Teams:

Kings:

15 SP Marais, 14 Sergeal Petersen, 13 Ronnie Cooke, 12 Andries Strauss, 11 Marcello Sampson, 10 Demetri Catrakilis, 9 Shaun Venter, 8 Jacques Engelbrecht, 7 Wimpie van der Walt, 6 Cornell du Preez, 5 Steven Sykes 4 Darron Nell (captain), 3 Kevin Buys, 2 Bandise Maku, 1 Schalk Ferreira

Substitutes: 16 Edgar Marutlulle, 17 Jaco Engels, 18 David Bulbring, 19 Luke Watson, 20 Nicolas Vergallo, 21 George Whitehead, 22 Hadleigh Parkes

Sharks:

15. Louis Ludik, 14. JP Pietersen, 13. Paul Jordaan, 12. Francois Steyn (captain), 11. Lwazi Mvovo, 10. Patrick Lambie, 9. Cobus Reinach, 8. Ryan Kankowski, 7. Jean Deysel, 6. Marcell Coetzee, 5. Franco van der Merwe, 4. Anton Bresler, 3. Jannie du Plessis, 2. Craig Burden, 1. Tendai Mtawarira

Substitutes: 16. Kyle Cooper, 17. Wiehahn Herbst, 18. Pieter-Steph du Toit, 19. Jacques Botes, 20. Charl McLeod, 21. Meyer Bosman, 22. Odwa Ndungane